Tanya's Island can best be described as the
Canadian film in which Vanity gets naked constantly, starting in the opening credits,
and eventually gets sodomized by a guy in a gorilla suit.

Now THAT'S entertainment.

Vanity plays an aspiring actress who seems to be involved in an
unfulfilling relationship with a sensitive artist. One night she
hears some heavy breathing upstairs in their apartment. There is a
glowing light behind the bathroom door, and when she opens
the door she is transported to a tropical island where she and her
artist are running around in flimsy clothing or no clothing at
all. They seem to be getting along better on the island than they
were back in Canada, except that she is in the process
of forming a relationship with a guy in a cheesy 1930s-style
gorilla suit. Given the pretentious, yet incompetent nature of
this film, and the fact that the entire island adventure is
obviously a fantasy sequence or dream, this could mean one of three things:

1. She longs for a man with a more bestial nature than her
sensitive artist.

2. She longs to have a relationship with a gorilla.

3. She longs to have a relationship with a guy in a gorilla suit.
Because sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

They are the only three living beings on the island. The artist is
jealous of Vanity's relationship with the gorilla, so he traps the
gorilla and cages him. Vanity is outraged by this, so she frees
the creature, whereupon the gorilla traps Vanity and cages her.
Vanity tries to escape, whereupon the gorilla catches her, mounts
her from behind, and ....

She wakes up, and it was all a dream.

I didn't make that up. In fact I didn't make up any of the above.
That's really what the film is about.

I reckon that 1980 was an especially poor year for Canadian films,
because this ridiculous no-budget leftover from the 1970s
zeitgeist was actually nominated for a Genie, the Hoser Oscar. To
place it all in context, Meatballs was nominated for many, many
Genies that year, including Best Picture, Best Original
Screenplay, and FOUR (that's not a misprint) acting awards.
Meatballs actually won the Genie for Best Original Screenplay and its
female star, Kate Lynch, was honored as the Best Actress. Tanya's
Island received a Genie nomination for the best costume design.

Tanya's Island seems to think it has something to say about the
psychology of love or dreams or something, but I'm not really sure
what that might be. I know it's a very difficult film to watch. It
has almost no dialogue, the presentation is smugly arty, the
acting is sub-par, and the director is far too impressed with his
own symbolic cinematography. At one point I was exhausted and
hoping the film was near the end when I checked my DVD player and
was disheartened to discover it had only been on for 28 minutes.

To make matters worse, the DVD seems to have been created by
simply converting a VHS tape.

Oh, well, Vanity is naked a lot ...

DVD INFO

No widescreen

There are no worthwhile features related to
this movie, but there are several trailers, including an
uncensored one from the rarely-seen Cannibal Taboo.

NUDITY REPORT

Vanity - complete frontal and
rear nudity

Richard Sargent -
also the full monty, including his penis in a woman-on-top sex
scene

The
Critics Vote ...

No major
reviews online.

It was nominated for a
Genie for Best Costume Design.

The People
Vote ...

IMDB summary.
IMDb voters score it 4.0/10, which is about four times
higher than it should be.

The meaning of the IMDb
score: 7.5 usually indicates a level of
excellence equivalent to about three and a half stars
from the critics. 6.0 usually indicates lukewarm
watchability, comparable to approximately two and a half stars
from the critics. The fives are generally not
worthwhile unless they are really your kind of
material, equivalent to about a two star rating from the critics,
or a C- from our system.
Films rated below five are generally awful even if you
like that kind of film - this score is roughly equivalent to one
and a half stars from the critics or a D on our scale. (Possibly even less,
depending on just how far below five the rating
is.

Our own
guideline:

A means the movie is so good it
will appeal to you even if you hate the genre.

B means the movie is not
good enough to win you over if you hate the
genre, but is good enough to do so if you have an
open mind about this type of film. Any film rated B- or better
is recommended for just about anyone. In order to rate at
least a B-, a film should be both a critical and commercial
success. Exceptions: (1) We will occasionally rate a film B- with
good popular acceptance and bad reviews, if we believe the
critics have severely underrated a film. (2) We may also
assign a B- or better to a well-reviewed film which did not do well at the
box office if we feel that the fault lay in the marketing of
the film, and that the film might have been a hit if people
had known about it. (Like, for example, The Waterdance.)

C+ means it has no crossover appeal, but
will be considered excellent by people who enjoy this kind of
movie. If this is your kind of movie, a C+ and an A are
indistinguishable to you.

C
means it is competent, but uninspired genre fare. People who
like this kind of movie will think it satisfactory. Others
probably will not.

C- indicates that it we found it to
be a poor movie, but genre addicts find it watchable. Any film
rated C- or better is recommended for fans of that type of
film, but films with this rating should be approached with
caution by mainstream audiences, who may find them incompetent
or repulsive or both. If this is NOT your kind of movie, a C-
and an E are indistinguishable to you.

D means you'll hate it even if you
like the genre. We don't score films below C- that
often, because we like movies and we think that most of them
have at least a solid niche audience. Now that you know that,
you should have serious reservations about any movie below C-.
Films rated below C- generally have both bad reviews and poor
popular acceptance.

E means that you'll hate it even if
you love the genre.

F means that the film is not only unappealing
across-the-board, but technically inept as well.

Based on this description, this
film, as seen on this DVD transfer, is an
F, pretentious gibberish in an awful transfer. I think
the correct score would be D- if there were a good DVD. It
appears that the photography would actually be quite beautiful
if it were properly transferred.